They Bleed Pixels

They Bleed Pixels is a fiendishly difficult action platformer inspired by H.P. Lovecraft and classic horror. Rendered in a distinct visual style that blends pixel art with paper and ink textures, They Bleed Pixels is a singular mix of intense platforming and fierce beat-em-up action.

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They Bleed Pixels

6

44

Problem with Audio? (And Graphical Tearing)

I'm not sure if it's just me, but for some reason the game's auido is barely audible, especially the music. I have the sound effects and music volumes set all the way to full but I can barely hear it. It shouldn't be my audio drivers since they're up to d...

Where to find the pages of the Book of Claws in They Bleed Pixels.
This guide assumes you've beaten the levels before and have a rough idea of their layouts. It's complete for all the chapters of the story, but if anything isn't clear you can leave a co

The Crimson Update doesn't work with my controller (DirectInput). The face buttons work alright, but neither the D-Pad nor either analogue stick will move my character. In addition, Joy2Key no longer works with this title for some reason. I had an old bac...

They Bleed Pixels is an awesome platformer if you just look at the artistic value.
However, gameplay is typically unforgiving and brutal. So how do you play a game that's borderline unplayable by default?
Here's a guide to help rule out your own mi

3 of 3 people (100%) found this review helpful1 person found this review funny

Recommended

4.2 hrs on record

Posted: July 27

I really love this game because of the graphic and also because of the playstyle and genre. They Bleed Pixel is a Jump and Run with cool movement tricks and nice attacks and sometimes it is just really hard to get 100% in one level but i am still trying to get further.If you love Jump and Runs this game is absolutely a must.

I really love this game because of the graphic and also because of the playstyle and genre. They Bleed Pixel is a Jump and Run with cool movement tricks and nice attacks and sometimes it is just really hard to get 100% in one level but i am still trying to get further.If you love Jump and Runs this game is absolutely a must.

This game advises you to use a gamepad. Unless you have an Xbox 360 controller, it won't work. In the "crimson update", which rewrote the engine, support for Direct Input and XInput controllers was supposedly added. The face buttons work now, but neither joystick, nor the D-Pad has any functionality. If that wasn't bad enough, the "crimson update" stopped Joy2Key from functioning with this game, so unless you either have an older copy of the game files or a 360 controller you cannot play with the gamepad like you were advised to use by the game itself.

Take this little bit of incompetence and apply it to the rest of the game, and you have a good idea of my thoughts on They Bleed Pixels.

The level design is "meh". It's uninspired, but I've seen much, much worse. That said, these will be some of the most frustrating platforming levels you'll ever encounter, thanks to the awful controls. If I didn't pull up Task Manager to check my resource usage, I would have sworn this thing was lagging to hell and back due to how delayed the controls are, especially the jump. Most of my deaths in this game were due to the horrendous delay on the jump. I'd either jump too late and die or I'd take my finger off the button after waiting nearly half a second, only to have the game finally let me jump, which is now too short and will kill me. I would have blamed it on Joy2Key, but I hit the same button on my keyboard and got the same delayed jump as I did when I hit the button on my pad.

You'll also notice that you become very slippery when picking up any amount of speed. This is kind of annoying, but it wouldn't cause too many problems if the jump was worth a crap. Of course, you're boned if you're on a surface that's supposed to be slippery, where Newton's Laws are in full effect and you can't even stab an enemy without being pushed back.

In addition, there are only four non-movement buttons used: Space and Escape, which are used for the menus, Jump, and Attack. "Attack" can be either a kick that sends enemies horizontally (and deals no damage, but may knock them into a hazard), a kick that sends enemies straight up (and also deals no damage), a dash attack, a horizontal stab, an aerial stab, an upward cut, a crouch stab, or a downward thrust. If you're thinking, "Does that ever cause problems?", the answer is, "Yes! All the time!". Most specifically, tapping left/right and hitting Attack does a dash attack, but holding left/right and hitting Attack does a horizontal stab.The problem is, if a dash attack OR a horizontal stab whiffs, you briefly lose your dash. This causes a lot of problems when you're trying to fight and dodge other enemies or traps like buzzsaws and gates, which makes up a good portion of the game. Almost every modern gamepad is a DualShock2 clone, with 4 face buttons, 4 shoulder triggers, a D-Pad, and 2 sticks. There's no excuse for a game to tell you to get a pad and then make you use a control system like this.

Next problem, hitstun. When you take damage, you get stunned, knocked back and are briefly invincible. This is standard, and normal. Problem is, due to the density of spikes and buzzsaws, you'll often get knocked into something else, which is when the problem arises. You see, if you get hit in your mercy invincibility state, your hitstun refreshes, but your mercy invincibility doesn't. Getting knocked between buzzsaws is a constant problem in this game, and will lead to many deaths. Your hitstun is only slightly shorter than your mercy invincibility, and you can't influence which direction you fly when getting hit, so expect to die a lot due to this wonky system.

The soundtrack is alright. Nothing jumped out at me as great, and nothing ever grated on my ears. It's perfectly serviceable.

I wanted to like this game. Retrostyled platformers are my jam and I liked the "cute horror" aesthetic it had going. In the end I just couldn't. The best thing about this game is that, if you make a link to the .exe file instead of clicking on the Steam link, you can start this game up without Steam running in the background, which allows you to run older (read: working gamepad) versions and will let you continue playing if Valve ever goes bankrupt. However, I can't foresee ever wanting to play this game again. If the controls and stun issue were fixed, it would be an alright game, instead of a bad one. But why would you replay a game that was just "alright", when you can replay a great game, or even play a new one?

I think i'm done - check out the techbeta!
Goals:
- enable TBP to run on machines with lower specs
- remove the need for XNA, DotNet and Directx install
- allow for fast easy port to Linux, MacOS, etc.
- enable the ability to fine tune the game

Just brought this gem of a game due to some good words I've heard, only I can't even seem to start the thing.
As soon as I click on it to open, it opens the cmd window and jumps into the game. I see the beginning loading screen (I think?) for a split sec...

v 0.03 - 2014.10.15
First, thank you for waiting and I'm sorry this took SO long!
What is it:
- this is a technical beta to test how the TBP rewrite performs on various hardware, so if it doesn't run or crashes, please let me know here.
What it isn't:
...